Just thought you guys might like to see this. I recently purchased a large Pre Columbian artifact collection all found in Southern Mexico between the 1930's-50's and I was very excited when I saw this. This is a ceremonial cup with the body of a snake under it, at first with the wild head I thought it may be a tri colored hognose but this piece was found in Michoacán so I am pretty sure it was Loosely based on a Milksnake. The body has been broken and reparied, the tongue is missing and the tip of the tail is gone but still a fantastic artifact. Its hard to narrow down the culture that made this because so many were in the near area and overlapped through time.
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500 Year Old Jalisco Milk Snake
axelrodRelics
Dec 08, 2010 11:22 PM
Replies (8)
terryd
Dec 08, 2010 11:41 PM
That is a striking artifact to have picked up. Thanks for showing it to us, very interesting.
-Dell
DMong
Dec 09, 2010 11:33 AM
Wow!...that is one interesting piece bud!, thanks alot for sharing that with us!
I love that sort of stuff! 
~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"
my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com
Sunherp
Dec 09, 2010 11:54 AM
Very interesting stuff. There are numerous tricolored snakes in that part of Mexico (Lampropeltis, Pliocercus, Sonora, Micrurus, etc.). Super cool.
-Cole
denbar
Dec 09, 2010 12:04 PM
That is a really cool find.
--Dennis
JYohe
Dec 09, 2010 03:13 PM
looks to me to be based on coral snake....south / central american coral snake.....the triads then bicolor bandings alternate.....
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........JY
markg
Dec 09, 2010 03:17 PM
I think its a hybrid, lol.
Very cool artifact for sure. What other stuff did you get?
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Mark
Arkanis
Dec 10, 2010 10:43 AM
That is very cool.... i have also noticed that images of milk snakes (also rattlesnakes) are very common in the codices... especially Borgia Codex and Nutall Codex.
snake_bit
Dec 11, 2010 10:42 PM
Cool hash pipe man, far out.
Ok sorry bad joke.Does it smell like tobacco
too bad carbon dating is so costly
I have found a few things in the field.Nothing as cool as that precoloumbian pipe of yours.These are mostly local things from NY but the carnelian is from New Jersey Some points from Maryland,Azurite from AZ and the crystals are from Missouri .
Like snakes there is a lot of fakes around with artifacts
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"He's down in the basement staring at his snakes " My Wife
Doug L
